Methods, devices, and systems have been developed in various fields of technology for the monitoring of the movement and/or health of an individual. In the field of remote health monitoring, for instance, systems have been developed to enable an individual to contact medical professionals from their dwelling regarding a medical emergency.
For example, in various systems, a system is equipped with an emergency call button on a base station that initiates a call or signal to an emergency call center from a user's home telephone. The concept of such a system is that if an individual has a health related problem, they can press the emergency call button and emergency medical providers will respond to assist them.
To aid in situations, such as where an individual has fallen and cannot reach an emergency call button on the base station, portable devices have been developed. The portable devices generally include an emergency call button that transmits a signal to the base station in the dwelling indicating an emergency. Once the signal is made, the base station alerts a remote assistance center that can contact emergency medical personnel or a designated third party. Such devices are typically usable only within the dwelling of the individual and within a short distance to the base station.
Systems have also been developed that use sensors within the home to monitor an individual within a dwelling. Typically, these systems include motion sensors, for example, that are connected to a base control system that monitors areas within the dwelling for movement. When a lack of movement is indicated, the system indicates the lack of movement to a remote assistance center that can contact a party to aid the individual.
However, not all inactivity indicates that an individual is in need of assistance. For example, an individual can be sitting in a chair for a prolonged period, or lying in bed. These periods may be sufficient to initiate an alert for third party response, but may not actually be an emergency. In some of these systems, the system is designed to allow a third party to intervene to aid the individual according to the analysis of the information received by the remote assistance center.
Further, emergency call button devices and systems that use a number of sensors to monitor an individual and do analysis on the information collected typically use the call button or a sensor of the sensing system in isolation. Additionally, such sensing systems also monitor the health of the system, and its sensors, based upon the individual sensor activations. That is, a sensor can be activated, but may not be correlated with any other sensors in the system. Accordingly, the certainties of the sensor activations of these systems and/or the determinations of whether to take an action by a system are based upon the reliability and reception of signals from individual sensors.